Competition Law and Free Riding

A common line of defense for companies subject to antitrust scrutiny is to argue that the complainant seeks to free ride on their investments.

With my assistant Norman Neyrinck, we explore in a recent working paper (in French) whether firms can instrumentalize the competition rules to free ride on others’ efforts. See link hereafter.

We come to the conclusion that attempts to free ride through Article 101 TFEU allegations are likely to fail. In contrast, Article 102 TFEU offers a more promising legal avenue to wanna-be free riders.